Abhisek Somani | CA | PwC | KPMG | Aditya Birla Group | CFO -Apeejay Shipping

[Career Conversation] Abhisek Somani | CA | PwC | KPMG | Aditya Birla Group | CFO — Apeejay Shipping https://in.linkedin.com/in/abhisek-somani-906b2511b

Q1. What have been the prime drivers of your career for the past 18 years if you include articleship as well?

Ans: One of the key drivers for me has always been that I always believe that you have to keep upgrading yourself. Keep developing on your technical competencies. Having said that, I think it worked beautifully for the last 14 years and then I have kept continuously upgrading myself on whatever has been new, of whatever has kept coming up in terms of challenges in the accounting field or the finance field but as you grow up in the organisation you also realise that besides the technical competencies, you also have to develop a lot of human competencies in terms of management skills, developing people, caring for people, so I think today if I look back I can say the biggest trigger for me has been the adaptability. For any career guy who wants to go ahead in his career has to always remember that there is no one fixed path or solution for anything. What might have given you success yesterday might not give you success tomorrow so you have to continuously keep inventing yourself, keep upgrading yourself.

Q2. What has been the role of Don Bosco School, Liluah and St. Xavier’s College in shaping your career?

Ans: I think for any personality, your alma mater plays a key role because what you learn in the post graduates is all technical knowledge but the character building, I think that happens at the school level, may be some of it at the college level. So I think one of the basic principles of life which we are taught at Don Bosco is ‘perseverance is the only key to success’. I think that to a large extent has been one of the driving forces for all of us that no matter how difficult the situation is, no matter where life is taking us, we keep persevering. We keep working hard towards whatever our goal is and that to my mind is one of the single most important thing which Don Bosco has given me.

If you really need to unwind after all the politics at office with these transactional people around you, I think the school friends are one group of people who you can really bank upon, share your thoughts freely, they do not judge you by your failures or success, they have seen a lot of you so I think that gives a lot of comfort because you can go out to them, speak your heart out and knowing very well that they wouldn’t judge you, they wouldn’t misuse the information to gain some advantage over you, of course a good circle which is right from school does help.

Q3. What were your three years in terms of articleship?

Ans: I think articleship was the main foundation for at least my professional startup. Suddenly you come out of the cocoon of the comfort of your well-knit social circle and you are thrown into a professional world where everyone wants to see how you perform, what you do. Therefore I think that was my first exposure to professional world, of course risk advisory was by default but as I have always believed that most often when you choose something, it is great but when you don’t choose something and it is by default, it works out to be much better than great. So I think I got some very good mentors, some very good professionals who guided me in initial years, developed me as a professional resource and to a large extent whatever those rough edges were there in terms of character building, that happened during my articleship year. A lot of these people made me understand where I was lacking, what I needed to do better and I think that has definitely helped me to become a better resource today. As far as cribbing for articleship is concerned, I think most people more often have this mindset that it’s studies vs articleship, free time vs work time, I have never seen it that way. I think all of this is a part of the big circle so you have to enjoy everything. Articleship is very important, I can say anyone who has done a good articleship will find it much easier once they get into professional life, so I think it has helped me tremendously.

Q4. What has been your key learnings from Mr. Rajeev Basu during your articleship?

Ans: One thing is detailing; I think the eye for detail that no matter how confident you are, no matter whatever you think you know, there’s always that scope to do it in a more detailed manner, always a scope to better it from what you did last time. So one of the key features which I think he taught me was to construct something, then revisit it, re-construct it and construct a better version of what you did last time. So never say that this is the best that can happen, you always have scope to revisit your work and do better than what you did last time.

Q5. After clearing CA in November, and subsequently joined KPMG corporate finance, did you ever face that clichéd CA vs MBA debate?

Ans: I think we come from a generation where the debate was much more there, maybe not so relevant today but at that point of time a CA was normally considered as a person who was not well in terms with his communication skills, who probably didn’t understand ratio analysis and mergers and acquisitions, structuring, so I do remember when I was first called for the interview for corporate finance, the person who was interviewing me his first question was “As a CA do you think you will be able to do it?” and I was taken aback and I told him there’s almost everything in the curriculum which a CA does which makes him capable of handling mergers and acquisitions so I don’t see any reason why we would not be able to do it. In today’s context, I don’t know. Maybe it’s still played out, however, I think communication skills these days with the new kids on the block is because of the good schooling and the amount of exposure they have, I don’t think CA vs MBA discussion is any more relevant barring management skills which in any case a person would have to develop over a period of time as he grows in the organisation.

Q6. How was the typical day at work? Did work and life balance go on a toss?

Ans: I go back to my point — I have never seen life that way, that there’s a work and there’s a life; work is life and life is work. This comparison would always lead to a distraction in your mind. When I am at work, I enjoy, there were times when we used to work 18 hours at a stretch, but I don’t think it ever pained me because you are at a stage of life where you just want to grasp everything, every learning that you are getting. You don’t want to be in that mode where you start thinking about the number of hours you are putting; my mind always focuses on whether the 18 hours has been well spent. If the answer to that is yes, then it doesn’t matter whether I spent it on my life or spent it on my work. So yes, work life balance does go on a toss if you see it in that clichéd manner but I can tell you for all youngsters who are there that once you go through this grill at the very inception of your career, you will find that the amount of learning you get at that initial stages where you really don’t have that social obligations and even if you have they can be adjusted because you have late night friends who can adjust to you based on your timing and not of family life, I think it’s really important to put in those hours at that point in time.

Q7. What have been your glamourous moments in investment banking?

Ans: I think meeting most of these promoters, I have met Vedanta chairman, Anil Aggarwal, then Shapoorji Pallonji, I have met Cyrus Mistry, then presenting to Anil Ambani for his RCom transaction, so I think to be honest, it’s really overwhelming at times because these are the people you looked up to when you were in college and school, I think it was really wonderful times.

Q8. Then one sudden moment you decided to quit this glamourous job and you chose Essel Mining in the Aditya Birla Group, so did your critics tell you it’s a bad idea?

Ans: I go back to my basics, that if you choose something, it’s good but when god chooses, I think it’s always great. Honestly, this was a decision which was taken more from a point that I wanted to come back to family, it was not a professional decision and I left it to the almighty to take care of the rest, because I knew heart in heart that the decision I was taking was in the right spirit and if certain things are done in the right spirit, you always believe that it will go well. I still remember the conversation I had with my manager, he really scared me out of my skin saying that I was making a decision which probably a professional would not dream of, moving from Bombay to Kolkata, service to industry, and more so from an MNC to a Birla Group. There were lots of nips and buds while I was taking that decision.

Q9. Let’s say in terms of a CA fresher who would choose between industry and consulting, what do you think he must choose in terms of reward, learning front and growth perspective?

Ans: I think that’s a very difficult question but to be honest I think, for consulting you need a skillset which is very different from an industry skillset, I would recommend that you need to look internally; if you are a person who always wants to get into more and more challenges, you want to do different things, which is not a easy task, so if you are up for it, then I think consulting is where you should be. Consulting also requires considerable amount of upgradation every now and then because the client keeps looking up to you for solutions so you have to be up in the radar much ahead of the client in terms of what you are able to provide to him. Industry on the other hand, is for people who are more settled, who can take decisions in ambiguous situations, who can probably live through a decision even if it has gone wrong. Industry would mean that there could be various options, each would have it’s pros and cons so if you are that person who is stable enough, who has the emotional maturity, take it forward and even if it goes wrong, have the ability to back it and prove it to be right. So, I think there are different skillsets which are required for both of these segments.

Q10. What was your approach to win the trust of people in Essel Mining? How did you bag the prestigious assignments?

Ans: One thing I have always done and I still practice is keep your head down, keep working towards what you have been given, don’t ask too many questions in life, because most managers if you are able to add value to whatever is given to you, no matter how small it is, there is always scope for value addition. If one remembers and keeps doing that job diligently, sooner or later you will find that automatically there will be opportunities where you will be taken to the next level.

Q11. How have you ensured that you continuously change profiles and ensure wholesome development of the self? How do you ensure that siloing didn’t happen to you?

Ans: Add value. If you for example, want to get into an accounting role and currently you are into a finance role, naturally before that migration has to happen, you have to ensure that the last few years you have spent considerable amount of your effort parallel to your finance function to understand that nuances of accounts, and make people believe that if you are given this profile, you would be able to handle it, so I think that sort of planning you have to do to ensure that you continuously are able to change your role.

Q12. What are the attributes needed in fund raising in terms of hard skills, soft skills, etc.? What does one do to prepare and get the eligibility to get into these kind of roles?

Ans: a) Understanding the banking industry, understanding the rules and regulations. So I think as a fresher if you want to get into the industry, first step is to go through those master circulars which RBI has done, understand them, all this is well documented by most of these agencies, so once you have done that, second step would probably be starting the documentation work. So typically the way we prepare our people is that once you are into the banking team, the first step is to ensure you are doing the entire documentation work, which people call the patent work. There is a person who is controlling the transaction, and behind the scene, you are the person who is churning the set of documents, reading through the clauses, understanding the implication of those clauses, once you are done with that I would typically depending on the volume of the transactions of the company, you are well-prepared to come to the front-end, there I think the soft skills start playing in which includes negotiation skills, building relationships, building trust with stakeholders, so I think it involves a lot of IQ in the initial stages and then it involves a lot of the application of that IQ into the relationship front with people on the other side also realise that this is a person who understands those terms and conditions which normally are used and who has solutions for problems they are getting stuck and is in a position to find solutions so I think typically it takes a 5–7 year career to reach an age where you will be able to take transactions single-handedly.

Q13. If you would take the audience through a typical exercise of raising 500 crores for a company, so what are the typical steps that are involved?

Ans: It starts with a preparation of a detailed project report which normally we call the information memorandum wherein we put in one of the details of the project for which we are raising the fund, building a bankable model, once that is done and it is well researched and thought through and made, then you approach the banks. Identifying the most likeable banks in terms of funding, you identify all the aspects and then you set out information to the banks and then invite for term sheets and from term sheet education to comparison, aligning all the people in the same front, building clauses which are in your interest, and finally executing the final set of documentation, is how a typical fund raising program would end.

Q14. Once I am into the banking treasury zone, do I automatically get exposed to things like credit rating, and preparation of long term forecast, etc.? How important is credit rating?

Ans: From a corporate side, I think you have to be very careful when you are handling credit rating agencies in terms of information you are giving them, in terms of reliability of your projections you are giving them, you have to ensure that they are not overboard. I think typically what has happened in the last 2 months is that companies who are a little overboard in terms of projections, they try and manage a lot of long term funding through short term means and rating agencies given the promoter credibility or the balance sheet strength, normally tend to overlook these factors. I think this is what has come to haunt the industry; so the finance professional we all have to realise that in order to ensure that there are no systematic risk in this financial world, the basics have to be correct that if you are doing a project funding it cannot be through a commercial paper. If you are doing a projection, you have to build in sufficient amount of quotient. There has to be projection which you think is realistic rather than optimistic.

Q15. One dimension of your job is also to handle a treasury worth a few 100 crores on the investment site, so how does this job compare with that of a fund manager?

Ans: It’s not as exciting as a fund manager’s job but a fund manager’s job is still to find out new companies, he has to ensure that every quarter he is doing a review, treasury of a corporate is much more simpler. All you need to do is to understand there are not underlined risks in the investment portfolio, so whatever companies which comprise the portfolio, you have to keep a tab on those companies, ensure that you are updated on the market if there are any risks to the group or to the individual company. Besides that I think it only involves taking view on the long term interest rates, how the interest rates are likely to move and whether you should remain a short-term investor or not, but I would not say it is as exciting as a fund manager’s job.

Q16. What’s your vision 2030?

Ans: I have always looked up to a CFO’s position and I would say that I still aspire to be a CFO by 2030, but somewhere I am also now contemplating that if opportunity arises why should I block myself and not look at goals which are profit-centred roles, so maybe head marketing where I will lead is also something I can contemplate now. Probably 5 years back I would have said a CFO surely, but now I think I realise not necessarily as a finance professional CFO is the only thing which you can become, if you understand business and how the business dynamic work, you should look at a broader spectrum of things.

Q17. What do you do for fun?

Ans: Over the last few years, it has been centred around my son. So the most wonderful way of unwinding for me is coming back home, spend a few hours with him, we do a lot of reading together, I think that unwinds me completely. Apart from that, I am also an avid reader, so I keep reading a lot of things. I keep myself updated with whatever is happening around me, that gives me a lot of unwinding. Unwinding basically means, you go out of your normal spectrum, read something which is altogether a different horizon. So your mind starts focusing on other things rather than the only work you have been focusing on and I think it helps you unwinding.

Q18. Nowadays the pressure kids are facing is that a lot of unfulfilled aspirations of parents are now being imposed on the kids, so from the very childhood they are pressured to perform. What is your philosophy on that?

Ans: Pressure is good, but at the same time the kid has to be sure that with that pressure there is a lot of love, affection and care so if he falters, you are there for him; but that doesn’t mean you would not push him to achieve his boundaries. My parents did a wonderful job; they pushed me more and more, but at the same time I always knew that if I falter, then I don’t become a stupid child for them, I still am the lovable child. So I think balancing both these aspects is very important.

Q19. What do you do for physical fitness?

Ans: I do walking, but I think that’s something very sporadic. That’s something my wife keeps telling me I need to work upon more. Maybe over the next 2–3 years that’s something which I need to definitely pull up myself more.

Q20. What would be your advice to youngsters who are watching the show?

Ans: Keep your head down; keep learning; there’s always an opportunity in everything you do. Don’t get worked down that I have been doing this for 2 years and it’s not fulfilling; sometimes a bamboo tree takes years to grow, but when it grows it grows very fast. So, don’t get disheartened, just keep focusing and doing the things rightly. If you are destined to be somewhere, no one can take away that from you.

If you get an opportunity to choose a path, great, but if you do not get an opportunity to choose, then I think it’s better than great. Believe in destiny that if you have been put into something, probably it’s for the good and I think over a period of time, your individual character, if you are an outward guy who normally is extrovert, you would yourself get aligned to career path like sales and marketing, and if you are an introvert, you might become an analyst, accounts guy, so I think your basic characteristics would anyway define the path you will go ahead in. At the start of your career don’t think too much about it, just do diligently whatever opportunities are given to you, do it in the best possible manner you can.